


The Happy Prince

by SweetPotatoHashira



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Hallucinations, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 07:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20542622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetPotatoHashira/pseuds/SweetPotatoHashira
Summary: The first time the hands reached out to him was in his dreams.





	The Happy Prince

The first time the hands reached out to him was in his dreams.

Sleep scarcely sought Dimitri at the time, but he found himself drifting off after crying into his pillow for the nth time. He was submerged in some inky black dimension, and through blurred vision saw a pair of hands beckon towards him.

They were large and scarred, yet familiar. Dimitri knew who they belonged to of course, they were his father's. He reached out to grasp them.

They were different though. He'd remembered them as being warm, whenever his father ruffled his hair or lifted him up to sit on his lap. The skin was frigid, fingers stiff. Upon closer inspection, dirt and dried blood were caked under its fingernails.

Yelping, he pulled away, but the hands grabbed ahold of him and voices began to whisper into his ear. The grip on his shoulders was so tight, no matter how hard he shook he couldn't escape.

That night, they had taken away his innocence.

Gradually, as the years went by, they continued to flake away at him. Piece by piece, his will and happiness was chipped away. Some nights, he saw his stepmother's elegant hands, always so deft with the needle. On other's he would see the hands of the knights that perished that day, like Glenn's.

Dimitri accepted it. He had survived that tragedy, and by doing so, signed his life away in service to the dead. Every part of him they stripped away was a sacrifice. Every hour of sleep they stole was to repay his debt.

He began to crumble more quickly after the incident with Edelgard, he could almost feel his shiny outer exterior fading away to finally reveal his worthless, dull stone interior. Soon enough, his friends began to whisper behind his back too.

The night after his escape from his execution he sat, curled up in the corner of some dark forest. He could still hear the pleas of Dedue, begging him to run. Cuts and bruises were littered across his body, but the main source of his pain was in his head. 

The right side specifically. An intense, spiking throb that shook his core and made him feel like heaving. Warm liquid was seeping from his eye and in his delirium he wondered if he had been crying.

"Dimitri..."

They were here again, he thought. But was he dreaming? They had begun to manifest physically, he supposed

Tonight, they were his father's. Grasping blindly through the air, as if they were looking for something.

"You filthy bastard...pay your dues...ungrateful wretch!"

"What do you want?"

No response came, an unbearable pain seared through his eye and he couldn't help but moan in agony as his eye was wrenched from its socket. Through tears, he watched as that blood-soaked hand held his eye, impaled by an arrowhead. It glimmered under the moonlight, almost like a jewel, before vanishing just like any other night.

Dimitri found himself wandering back to Garreg Mach. How long had it been since he'd left this place?

As he sat in the shade and rested, a figure paced up the stairs. And a hand reached out to him from the glaring brightness. His Professor's. Dread set into the pit of his stomach.

Of course, he'd failed them too. Now it was their turn to come and reap. He almost laughed, what foolish part of him was hoping for them to be alive?

Part of him had been glad. Fortunately, they wouldn't have to see this side of him. This sad, pathetic monster with a cracked heart made of lead.

"So, Professor. Which part of me will you be collecting?"

He peered up at their neutral expression, hand still outreached.

They were the quietest one yet.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been reading a lot of Oscar Wilde lately and felt that The Happy Prince applies so well to Dimitri. I'm sorry to dumb this sad mess on ya'll. I might write another chapter where it's actually happy stuff? Who knows?
> 
> Also, I wrote this at 2am because this idea struck me just as I was about to fall asleep. Forgive my crappy writing.


End file.
